The Girl In the Night
by Chibi Amy Chan
Summary: When Vash sleeps, it's not easy. His mind is covering a part of his past that he didn't realize he had, but he regains that memory when the girl in the night comes to visit.. (Vash POV, VashxOC)


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Amy: Hey everyone! Sorry I haven't updated in a while.. 

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Seran: ; Big surprise... 

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Amy: *glare* I've been REALLY busy and have been fretting over my friend coming from Michigan (HI MEG! *wavewavewavewave*), staking out new anime (this story is gonna be about one of the new ones I'm addicted to!), and just generally been lazing around. It's summer, isn't it? I get to enjoy my time off other than spending it in front of the computer for school work and typing stories. ^___^ 

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Seran: Doing what? Watching TV? Big difference! 

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Amy: Shut UP Seran! Anyway, I got this idea today while just sitting aimlessly in my living room... and had been thinking about the episode of Trigun I'd seen the night before. Yakno, where Vash is under cover as Ericks in the town with his hair long and glasses? 

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Seran: Basically when he looks completely different and un-like himself and Amy drooling all over him. *nodnod*

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Amy: ¬______¬ *stuffs Seran into a burlap sack*

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Mmkay, the girl you're about to hear of in this story is my original character. This is also written in Vash's POV. Enjoy! 

Warnings: Nothing, really... just Vash and my character talking. In the middle of the night. And Vash having really no idea who she is. And hallucinating that it's Rem. And- okay, now I'm just gonna stop before I dig myself even deeper. -___-;

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//blahblahblah// Is a flashback.

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The moon is quite pretty tonight, I think to myself as I stare out the window. Just like last night, and the night before that, and even the past nights for the last few months, I cannot sleep. The only thing that ever helps is... her. 

Sighing, I roll over and toward the open window, tucking the covers up over my shoulder so that they don't flap around in the dry breeze that's coming in. It's another restless night, at least until she comes. 

It's a bit childish, really. I can't believe that I've become dependant on her presence, her calm demeanor, her quiet way of talking, to fall asleep at night. I'm not sure whether to think it's a good thing or a bad thing; ever since the Angel Arm destroyed another town, I can't trust myself to touch a gun, let alone fall asleep. I thought that maybe the farce I held up would help, maybe even make me forget about my past, but it hasn't. I don't think it ever will. 

But, every morning, I find that I wake up, feeling refreshed and, somehow, satiated. I know that at every sunrise I am being watched, but in a good way. It gives me a feeling of security, so that if I ever did something during the night, she would stop me. I think she watches me all night, though she is always gone when I wake up. 

I've learned that I should never talk to her first. If she is simply standing or sitting there, watching me, I must be quiet until she initiates conversation. Then, it is safe for me to question her, to talk with her. I learned this the hard way; the first few times I talked to her first, she disappeared immediately and left me to fall into an uneasy sleep, sluggish and slow the next morning. I hated that feeling. 

Though, when I wait, and she starts talking, I find it quite pleasant. She talks of funny things, serious subjects, love, general conversation. But I know she is a skilled negotiator, and skilled at whatever else she does. I can tell it in the way she talks carefully, slowly, and calmly, as if trying to coax a scared dog to her. I find that the way she talks lulls me to sleep most of the time, and she talks, and talks, and talks.. it comforts me, in a way. 

I pull the sheets up further. Right now, I find myself waiting, just like always. She never shows up at the same time as the previous night. I can find no pattern in the way of timing that she comes. It's always just between 12 A.M. and 3 A.M. Never before, and never after. It's as if she just comes at her own leisure. 

I sigh and feel a chill run up my back. It is a cold chill, colder than normal, but I can tell that she is here. But something is different tonight; I can sense it. Normally she's calm, but tonight, she seems agitated, almost worried. She's tapping her fingers from atop the bureau; she's never sat up that high before. But, as always, she is concealed in the shadows. All I can make out are her slender hands, the jeans she wears, and the white t-shirt she is wearing. Anything above that, I cannot see. Her face and shoulders are draped in shadow; dressed as the way she is, she reminds me of Rem. I can picture Rem sitting there, in the same clothes, but this is not Rem's voice. Still, I like to think some nights that it is Rem. For once, just to have her back and taking care of me, as it had been... but tonight is not one of those nights. Tonight, she needs me to know it is her, and not Rem. After a few moments of silence, she speaks, and I roll over to face her. I can see that she is holding something in the shadows as well. 

"Vash," she sighs. She knew my name from the get-go, and I never questioned this. "We need to talk very seriously tonight. Tonight, you may ask absolutely anything you want." 

Now, this startles me. I sit up, flicking a stray hair from my face and looking at her. "Anything? Even some of the questions you would never answer me before?" 

She nods, and I can tell she wears a solemn, sad look on her face. "Yes, Vash. Even those questions." A pause. "You may never get another chance to. From this night on, you will know me as someone else, not as the girl that visits you late at night." 

Automatically, a thousand questions pop into my head. But I'm confused at the same time, and she can sense it. Before I even get out a single word, she speaks up again. "There are terrible perils coming in the future, Vash. I am here to simply aid you, but for right now, I want you to know- and ask- everything of me. I might never offer this to you again, Vash; please, take advantage." 

She quiets again, going into what I've dubbed her "Answer" mode. I get even more confused still, and I don't know where to start with my questions. I gather my thoughts and questions to one central place and start with the one question that came forth the most. "Who are you?" 

"My name is Taz the Tornado. I am the outlaw secondary in threat to you." Short. Clipped. She has never spoken to me like this before. 

"Why have you been visiting me?" 

"So that you wouldn't do anything with your Angel Arm again. I know that it was not your fault, destroying that second town, but nonetheless I want to make sure that you will be okay." 

"Taz... that sounds familiar." 

"It should."

"Why? Why is it familiar to me?" I feel like a mere child, having the birds-and-the-bees chat with his parents. Is this what she has reduced me to feeling like, even if it is only for tonight? 

"Vash, think. Rem, the escape pod. ...Knives."

And suddenly, it hits me. This is Taznia, from the SEEDS ship. I remember distinctly now. The memories that I have of her as a child flow to my mind, and I fall silent, reminiscing.. 

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//Rem lead me down the tunnel to the alternative Rec Room. She'd told me before hand that she wanted me to meet someone very special. 

"Vash, she's just like you and Knives! We found her after we found you two, isn't that odd?" Rem said, a smile lighting up her face. I loved it when she smiled. I nodded in response to her. 

Stopping, she opened the door to the room and stopped cold. Knives was panting in the middle of the ground there, head between his knees. The next second, Rem was over to him, myself in her wake, and she was demanding what happened to him, and where this girl was. 

"She... she hit me and ran off! That way!" Knives said, pointing a finger in the direction of the other end of the room. Rem, leaving the two of us sitting there, ran off in the direction that Knives had indicated. Knives turned to me, eyes wide. He took my hand in his. 

"Brother, she.. she's horrible! I advise you to stay away from here, from her. This is where she lives." Knives pulled me over into a hug, and I stared wide-eyed over at Rem, who had a smaller form tucked into her arms and was walking over to us. This small form was a girl, and huge, vividly green eyes blinked over Rem's arm at me before there was a shrill whimper. After that, I bolted from the room. I was afraid of her, though I didn't know why... //

Blinking over at her now, sitting up on the bureau, she is deathly silent. And then another memory comes back, of the pod, the SEEDS escape pod... 

_//Rem ran away from us, from the escape pod, and came back a minute later with the little girl in tow behind her. The little girl was dressed in a space suit as well. Rem pushed her forward and into the pod, and Knives willingly caught her as she threw herself into his open arms. Her form wasn't considerably smaller, but somewhat compared to his. I was confused at this, after what she had done to him... _

"I have to go back to the sleeping people, back to the main dock," Rem was saying, and she hit the close button on the pod door. I ran to it, throwing myself against it and started crying. 

"REM! You have to come with us!" I shouted, repeatedly. "C'mon! You have to! REM!" 

"I'm sorry, Vash. Take care of Knives and Taz!" A tear ran down Rem's face before the door closed completely, and I collapsed against it, crying my eyes to near exhaustion. A minute or two later, I felt a small hand on my shoulder, and I turned to look at the little girl, with the bright green eyes and blondish-brown colored hair. She had tears staining her face as well. 

"Rem," she whispered, "was like a sister to me." After that, I found that I was hugging her, and we both were crying, until Knives started laughing. Not just any laugh, a considerably evil laugh. 

"Fools.. humans are so useless. We are a superior race! I was going to let that one live, because you were so attached to her, Vash, but she decided to kill herself in the process." Knives motioned to the monitor that showed outside the pod. "I did all of this. The ships will crash! The humans will vanish. Be killed. Oh, and Taz... you're not Rem's little sister." 

Knives continued to laugh, until he was tackled down, against the sleek metal floor. It wasn't me either. 

"Shut up! SHUT UP!" Taz started to scream, grasping Knives' shoulders and banging him against the floor. Then, she started to cry, and her tears repeatedly hit his face. Knives' face was frozen in wide-eyed shock, his mouth a half-crescent in surprise. Her fingers were curled into the excess cloth of his spacesuit, and she was shaking. 

"Y-you're such a jerk! And I actually believed YOU!" She got off of him and backed away, her head tilted forward but her eyes glued onto him in a furious glare. She backed up into me, and then put her arms around my waist and buried her face into my shoulder, crying and sobbing again. Tears streamed down my face as I stared at Knives defiantly, daring him though eye-communication to say anything more. He didn't. 

The pod soon landed, though Rem somehow managed to save the other ships before the main one blew up. Taz and I equally started to cry then. Knives just laughed. I hated him for it. We all stumbled out onto the dusty planet, and Taz started to run one way before I caught her by the arm, jerking her back. We both sank to our knees and she hugged me. 

She whispered, very quietly into my ear, "My real name is Taznia. If you ever need me, call my name- my full name- and I will come to help you, no matter where you are." With that, she got up and turned, running for the hills.// 

I swallow. Suddenly, I feel like I need a huge glass of water. Looking up at Taz, I swallow again and voice the next few words. 

"It... it was you." She nods. "You were gone.. all this time.. but..." I stop, thinking my words over carefully. "Why were you afraid of me?" 

"Knives." A moment of silence. "He told me that you would kill me if I went near you, or talked to you. But after I saw you crying after Rem, I... I knew. Knives wasn't to be trusted." Her tone has softened, and she is talking sincerely now. 

I play with the hem of my sleeping shirt, toying over my next few questions. Too many are flooding my mind and I have no clue as to which I should choose to ask next. Suddenly, the two most prominent questions rise up amongst the others. 

"...May I see you?" My question is quiet, almost inaudible. I'm not sure if she has heard me until I see her slide from her seat and hit the surface of the initial chest of drawers. Then, she steps down to the floor, and walks across the rickety floorboards to my bed. Immediately, her green eyes- every bit as vivid as I remember them- are illuminated in the moonlight. Her hair is exactly like I remember it, soft-looking and very long, down to her tailbone. It flickers about in the breeze, as though it has a life of its own. Taz smiles down at me, her right hand behind her back. Her left hand rests on the edge of the mattress. 

I can't speak as I stare up at her. Never, no matter how many times I tried to imagine it, had I'd dreamed the young Taz that I had seen fleetingly would ever grow to look this beautiful- and this tall- as the woman standing before me now. Not thinking, I swing my feet over the side of the bed and stand, feeling confused and yet totally sure of what I am doing. Taz turns to face me as I face her.

Reaching out in a silent question, Taz nods, and I touch her cheek, pick up a lock of her hair, touch her shoulder, just to assure myself that she is really here. But the big, expressively green eyes are really all the assurance I need. I pull Taz into a hug, resting my nose in her hair, which smells clean and feels every bit as soft as it looks. She accepts the hug, and tightens her arms around my waist. I feel semi-cold metal at my back, but I do not question it, for she is holding whatever that metal is and I trust her. 

We stand there for a few minutes, hugging in silent bliss, as two long-ago friends would after reuniting with each other. I stroke her hair, a thick glossy sheet over her back. Her face in buried in my shoulder, and we don't move. This... feels right, in a weird way, I think to myself as I pause in my petting of her hair. It feels just as right as it did in the pod when I hugged her and just as right as it did when I caught her by the arm and hugged her just before she ran. I tighten my one-armed grip around her back and take a deep breath, letting it out in a sigh. Finally, she decides to pull away, but not completely out of my grip. Her eyes are shiny, and though she'd probably never admit it, she is crying. I smile slightly and toy with a shorter piece of her hair at the front of her face, soaking in every feature I can about her, so as to remember exactly what she looks like- after all, Taz had said I might not see her after tonight. 

Before I know it, she pulls away and turns toward the window. Sighing very quietly, she tosses an object over her shoulder at me. The cool metal is now familiar; it is my gun, shiny and repaired. I look up at her questioningly at her. 

"Go with him tomorrow. Danger and strife lie ahead, Vash.. you'll need that to protect yourself." She hugs herself, staring out the open window, her hair being played with. I watch her silently, looking from my gun, to her, and back, before opening my mouth. 

"Why have you been coming?" 

Taz turns to look at me, before a smile lights her face. It's genuine, and, I have a feeling I'll be the only one to see it for a while. Then, she speaks. 

"It's because you've been calling me, Vash. After 107 years, you started to call my name in your sleep because you were scared. You ask me each morning before you wake to leave but to come back the next night to watch over you." 

I gasp slightly, feeling ashamed of what I have been doing. Have I been ordering her- by her real name, no less- to watch over me against her will? 

"I do not mind it, Vash." She is back near me now. She places her hand onto my cheek, and her face is tilted up to look at me. Her eyes search mine. "I do not mind watching over you every night. ....It's what Rem would have wanted." She starts to let her hand drop, but I reach up and place my own over hers, to keep it pinned to my face. I close my eyes, reveling in the fact that she is here, she is real, and I'm feeling something I haven't felt in a long, long time. I cannot place what this feeling is, though. All I do know is that it feels great. Though my eyes are closed, I feel her free hand rise and place itself on my other cheek. 

"Vash," she whispers. I open my eyes, looking down at her. She looks to be on the brink of crying, and I toss my gun onto my bed. I wipe away the single tear with my now free hand, and she closes her eyes, but speaks. "I have to go. Just heed my warning, alright?"

I nod, watching her face and wondering just how she is making me feel this way. After a while, she opens her eyes, but I can tell she is rooted to the spot, just like I am. Then, she puts her arms around my neck and gives me a long hug, before leaning back and giving me a short kiss. I am slightly surprised by her forwardness. Though I want to resist it so much, I have to ask it of her. 

"Will you please stay? Just one more night?" 

She nods her reply, but turns to walk to the window, where she probably would have chosen to watch me from; but, no, I grab her wrist and soon I have her tucked against me, enfolding her in my arms as we lay on my bed. I cannot help but think just how comforting it feels to have her in my arms. It feels so.... right. So simply right. I tiredly stare at the winking silver metal at the edge of my bed.

It is not until just before I fall asleep that it occurs to me: I never asked her to stay with her real name. 

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I wake up to the morning suns. My covers are tucked about me, and the window shade is pulled shut. Taz is not here. 

I sit up, blinking around me. There is no trace of my gun; no sign of Taz even being here. I sigh, dismayed. Was last night all but a dream? 

No, no, I convince myself, raising a hand to my lips that, even after a short kiss late at night, still tingle. It was real. All so very real. At this moment, I hear footsteps. 

"Ericks?" I hear Lena call, and I quickly scramble for my glasses. Putting them on, I smile. I am ready to greet the day. 

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It is the next afternoon. Wolfwood showed up with my gun. We saved Lena from the bandits. Now, I am standing outside, waiting to leave, my hair cut to its normal length and my glasses, gone. I am waiting for Wolfwood so we can leave. Taz is on my mind, always a constant nag to me now. 

"Are you ready?" Wolfwood says to me, grinding his heel into the cigarette butt he dropped to the sandy street. I smirk. 

"As I'll ever-" I pause mid-sentence, staring over his shoulder at a figure that just appeared. She is wearing a blue coat, not unlike my red one, and her arms are covered in straps and buckles. Her hands are gloved, feet, booted. Zippers adorn her jacket instead of buttons, like mine, and she is wearing sunglasses that have purple lenses and are silver rimmed. The arms of those glasses are silver too, with tiny spirals on them. Attached to her waist, by a belt, are two holsters with guns in them. 

But her attire is not what I am most concentrated on. It's her hair, the way she is carrying herself as she walks down the street. I know who it is. It is Taz. 

But this is not the Taz that I know. She sends a withering look to Wolfwood, I slightly less intense version of the same look to me. This is Taz the Tornado, in her upkeep of image. She catches my eye, and I know what she is saying to me. I can practically hear her quietly telling me. 

"Go with him," she is saying. "I will follow. Do not worry." 

With this assurance, I sleep easy again. 

^*Owari*^

/|\..Or is it?/|\

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Amy: So? What did you think? 

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Seran: *speechless* O___O

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Amy: If Seran is that quiet... it's gotta be good. O__o Anyway, review? Please? Let me know if I should expand this into a story. 

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Seran: *still speechless* o______o


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